This is my two thousand point Illuminati Chaos Warband. A couple of despoilers, one rigged for close combat, the other has a twin-linked lascannon. A Predator rigged as a tank hunter. One unit of marines and one of lesser daemons. A small unit of chosen armed with plasma weapons in a Rhino, six terminators and a unit of possessed. The only fast attack choice is a small bike unit. The army is well eqipped with chaos undivided icons (dameon bus stops) and melta bombs. My HQ choiced are a chaos lord (I use Huron) and the daemon prince Illuminatus.
The army is quasi legal at the moment as I am using the damons as one of the obligatory troop choices. My friend, Shaun, kindly agreed to overlook this.
The Illuminati have a series grudge against the Blood Angels. The Blood Angels hate traitors and heretics. So this is a grudge match. Set up as above. We both have considerable reserves.
I swung my fast moving forces around the left flank, advanced my infantry in the centre, and tried to use my defiler and predator to hold off Shaun's vehicles on the right flank, especially the land raider.
Reinforcements arrive: There is a fall of angels.
Unfortunately, they fall too far away from the main line and fight lonely battles. One group is wiped out by the possessed and my large chaos marine unit.
The other has more luck. I charge it with my close-combat defiler. It has an initiative of three. The Blood Angel assault troops toss krak grenades into its weak rear armour - Kaboom.
Memo: Despite have three dreadnought close combat weapons and being fleet, a defiler cannot go toe to toe with decent infantry.
I move the other defiler into cover in an attempt to give it some cover against the land raiders lascannon.
Memo: Defilers lack the armour to exchange fire with real tanks.
Shaun races his vehicles forward to link up with his remaining assault marines but my chosen and newly materialising damons wipe them out. My terminators deep strike. My last defiler charges Shaun's predator to rip it to pieces with it's claws but cannot penetrate the tank's armour.
Memo: Defilers are not much use against vehicles in close combat.
At this point the Blood Angels withdrew.
Memo: What bloody use are defilers? Anyone got any ideas?
PS I am not convinced land raiders are worth the points either.
PPS Many Roles, Can't do Any.
Remember that against Walkers, CC attacks are against the Front armor, so those Krak grenades should have been going against AV12.
ReplyDeleteAlso the Defiler should have been going against the Predator's Rear armor, and S10 vs. AV 10 shouldn't be hard, if it can manage to hit.
IMO a Defiler's main use is to have a scary long-range gun to draw fire from advancing rhinos, having people shoot its av12 vs. the av11 rhinos. Then it gets a weapon destroyed result, losing the cannon and fleets into something, hopefully taking a few more down when it explodes.
Dear Sons
ReplyDeleteI forgot the frontal armour rule. Ah well, one lives and learns.
My defiler couldn't hit anything.......
But I will persevere. I must just not be using them right. (Dribbles onto shirt).
John
The army's looking swell, John!
ReplyDeleteArmies look lovely. Try to get more terrain on the table. It currently looks a lot less than the recommended 25% and you should notice a big change to your gameplay and tactics once you up the amount.
ReplyDeleteDear Cyborg
ReplyDeleteI think the problem with the despoilers may be me. I keep playing them all wrong.
I shall persevere by trial and orror.
J.
PS Re: land raiders. 250 pts is a lot for an APC. You can get two predators for that.
Dear Eltnot
ReplyDeleteWe play with very variable amounts of terrain depending on the scenario. This was an open table. Variation keeps one on ones toes, tactically speaking :)
Hi John
ReplyDeletere the frontal armour vs krak grenades sorry? I thought it was the side the attacker was facing and I landed behind you on this occassion. By the way men of the match have to be the chosen so many automatic kills it wasn't true (3 to hit 2 to kill vs space marines and 7 chances at close range from a squad of 5 or 6 oooh so hurty). Now where are my chosen and where are all those spare plasma gun sprues
The walker thing is an easy one to forget, since it's an exception to an exception! Hit facing armor...oh, except in CC, hit rear...oh, except against a walker, hit front again. I'm sure in some book soon they'll put out a walker that is an exception to the exception to the exception and my head will explode.
ReplyDeleteDear Sons
ReplyDeleteLOL!
Sometimes, one gets the feeling they add this sort of complexity throuhgh stupidity. If you want walkers to be tougher in cc why not just increase their rear armour? But then what about shooting? Well put in a special rule that shooting from the rear against walkers always hits the front armour....I think I need to lie down now.
Dear Shaun
ReplyDeleteThe chosen are the boys alright.
J
Dear Drax
ReplyDeleteThanks,
J
Hoping you'll post something about a game of Hammer's Slammers vs. David Drake...
ReplyDelete:)
Dear Fred
ReplyDeleteI can't persuade David to play.
j